Oh, well....

James Crossley asks me, where is Cash detail? Sadly still being written, I'm afraid. I am going on holiday for a couple of weeks and am desperately trying to produce a finished draft of the paper so that I can at least pretend to relax while I am away. Offering a paper in a small conference is a great experience, a not to mention a not-to-be-missed opportunity, but there is also no place to hide. And the downside of being a dilettante is that you are usually pretty exposed, operating well beyond the limits of your formal competency (e.g. me and Johnny Cash). Offering something trashy to the likes of Chris Rowland and Heikki Raisanen is not my idea of a productive summer. So its got to be good (or at least, ok).

That is not the whole story, however. I don't write in blocks and trying to present a paper on-line like this has just driven that home to me. What I ought to do is present a series of draughts--the essay at the end of each day--and that way my way of working would become obvious. I tend to write and think at the same time (when I think at all, that is!) This means essays twist and turn until I finally nail them down. This is especially true of this piece, but I am in general not one of those people who work out what they want to say and just write it down. My computer is essential because it allows me to fiddle as I go along. No doubt one of these days, I'll invest time in something that doesn't work but it hasn't happened yet (oh, the arrogance). I am approaching a reasonable shape, but it's not quite there yet.

A final problem. I am still wondering about blogging and how it can relate to my academic situation (see my opening comments). Now here is a paper that will, God willing, be published eventually, albeit in a version about twice its conference length. But I find that I don't yet have the confidence to put the conference version on-line. It feels illegitimate somehow. Now I have used on-line essays (notably a David Clines essay on the Psalms) but I just don't know how this would work for me. The pressure here is not RAE driven because I have a full submission for that, but is a purely publishing issue. So I think I'll ponder that while I am away and leave you with some Cash songs and quotes (aping Jim West with his Zwingli quote fixation) which should give you some idea of where I am going here. (James, I might eventually be cowardly and just send you a copy for comments)

Any other comments gratefully received.